Georgia Runs Off

David Perdue, the Dollar General,is halfway to buying himself a Senate seat down in Georgia. Perdue dispatched Congressman Jack Kingston in Tuesday's Republican runoff election, shrewdly employing what is known to some political veterans as The Romney Corollary: I Are Rich, Therefore I Are Smart. Kingston was a fairly run-of-the-mill Southern conservative -- a transparently phony PAC-laden Man Of The People who failed to convince enough of the rubes that he was one of them this time around. This, it seems is good news for Michelle Nunn, the Democratic legacy nominee and daughter of Sam Nunn, the prototypical New Democrat of the late 1970's and early 1980's. If that is the case, then the Republican campaign to reclaim control of the Senate just became a much harder pull than it was on Tuesday morning.

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It's hard not to throw yourself a little Schadenfreude parade at the sight of the Chamber of Commerce having its well-tailored ass handed to it, and its endorsement largely being seen as the final shot below the waterline of the Kingston campaign. The Chamber has spent a lot of time and a lot of money ginning up The Base on a number of issues nationally. Unfortunately, because its members have a sweet tooth for cheap labor, the Chamber also has a fairly reasonable position on immigration reform, which Perdue, learning his wingnut dance steps one at a time, campaigned against as "amnesty." If The Base finds the Chamber's support now to be toxic, the Chamber has only itself to blame. Oddly enough, the major statewide races in Georgia are family affairs. You have former Governor Sonny Perdue's cousin running against Sam Nunn's daughter and, in the governor's contest, the Democratic nominee is Jimmy Carter's grandson. The War Of The Roses wasn't this dynastic.

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But it is elsewhere, in the various congressional races, where The Base really shone. This was the strange land within which Bob Freaking Barr was not conservative enough to get himself nominated. Instead, we have real prizes named Barry Loudermilk and Jody Hice. Let the invaluable Ed Kilgore introduce you. Loudermilk, for example, is staunchly committed to thwarting the plans of the UN to steal all our golfs.

(Fixed! Thanks to Top Commenter Kathleen.)

Described by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Jim Galloway as
a "constitutionalist somewhat in the mold of Paul Broun," Loudermilk
became famous even before running for office as the author of a
post-9/11 local newspaper screed that went globally viral, encouraging
non-Christians and immigrants to pack up and leave America if they
didn't like "our culture." During his climb through the Georgia
Republican ranks, Loudermilk has championed a variety of anti-immigrant
bills, "personhood" initiatives, efforts to shut down all state agencies
not specifically authorized by the state constitution, and serial
theocratic gestures. He was also one of the participants in a
colleague's "briefing" for state senators on the evil United Nations
Agenda 21 effort to destroy private property rights.

Ah, but Hice makes Loudermilk sound like Bernie Sanders. A crackpot preacher, he has an...ah...interesting interpretation of the First Amendment.

"Although Islam has a religious component, it is much more than a
simple religious ideology," Hice wrote in his 2012 book. "It is a
complete geo-political structure and, as such, does not deserve First
Amendment protection."

Is there more? You bet there is.

Hice believes that the Muslim Brotherhood is infiltrating the United
States, with the intent to impose Sharia law on all of us. He also
believes that it's fine for women to seek political office, at least if
certain conditions are met. "If the woman's within the authority of her
husband, I don't see a problem," he told the Athens Banner-Herald in
2004. Given all that, it will not surprise you to learn that Hice
would eagerly vote to impeach President Barack Obama. He also believes
that gay people are engaged in a plot to convert our young people to
homosexuality, and that "homosexuals have a right to be married; they
just don't have the right to marry each other."

This will come as some comfort to those of us who were concerned that Emperor For Life Louie Gohmert was going to be lonely when Michele Bachmann is raptured back to Minnesota next January. Louie has a new friend.